Books Set in a Global Environment

The Book of Names by Jill Gregory and Karen Tintori (2007)

The Book of Names is the Jewish answer to Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code.

According to Jewish tradition, within each generation, there are thirty-six righteous souls. No one knows who they are, but they are essential to the existence of the world. If they all die, the world as we know it ceases to exist. This book plays on this theme.

The main character is David Shepherd, a political science professor who is also the son of a senator. When he was a young teenager, he, along with two teens, was in a tragic fall from a roof-top. He survived, but one of his companions, Crispin Mueller, was in a coma for months. David has lost track of Crispin, but assumes that he ultimately died from his injuries.

Years later, David remembers his near death experience and recalls voices and names being called out to him. He records these memories in a notebook. He later becomes involves in the hunt for the Book of Names ~ an ancient text that legend has originated with Adam and Eve. By Kabbalistic tradition, this book contains the names of each generation thirty-six righteous individuals, known as the Hidden Ones.
David discovers that most of the names that he has “remembered” are actual people who have recently died under mysterious causes. At the same time, world events start to escalate that could be interpreted as the beginning of the end ~ war in Afghanistan, tsunamis in the Pacific, terrorist attacks …

As David seeks to identify the Hidden Ones, he finds himself face-to-face with the Hidden Ones mortal enemies, the Gnoseos, a secret anti-religious cult whose goal is to kill all the righteous ones, thereby destroying the world. David’s quest becomes personal when he realizes that one of the surviving thirty-six in his generation is his beloved stepdaughter, Stacy.

Of course, there is a love interest, as sabre Yael HarPaz joins in the search for the Gnoseos.

The book is a page-turner, but not of any real substance. It seems like it was written with a movie in mind. Not a bad book, but not intellectually stimulating, either.

Read: November 18, 2009